Hi Kathy,Welcome to eplaya and the crazy adventure of Burning Man.I have found over the years that Burning Man is a place to let yourself go and act a bit crazy if you want. You can be yourself, experiment with different personas and disconnect from the outside world. You're going to be 150 miles from civilization, and you will be depending on your planning and intuition. You will never really be alone there. Most everyone is open and welcoming. You will most likely have some meals at new friend's camps. In my signature below, you will find some links to some must read pages.Good luck with your planning and we'll see you in the dust in just 6 short months.Sham....

Sham wrote:Hi Kathy,Welcome to eplaya and the crazy adventure of Burning Man.I have found over the years that Burning Man is a place to let yourself go and act a bit crazy if you want. You can be yourself, experiment with different personas and disconnect from the outside world. You're going to be 150 miles from civilization, and you will be depending on your planning and intuition. You will never really be alone there. Most everyone is open and welcoming. You will most likely have some meals at new friend's camps. In my signature below, you will find some links to some must read pages.Good luck with your planning and we'll see you in the dust in just 6 short months.Sham....

Welcome to ePlaya, Kathy!And congratulations on being able to say "I'm lonely". So many of us are lonely in this technology-centered society, but there seems to be a taboo against admitting it.

Well, Burners are the precicely the sort of folks who dismiss taboos.

Perhaps it is too early for me to unleash my standard question of "What do you wish to contribute to the community of Burning Man?". There are times when we need to take care of ourselves first, before we have any reserves to give from. So please proceed at your own comfortable pace.

Correction to my earlier post: I said "admitting" to being lonely. But there is nothing to admit to! No wrong-doing to confess to! No reason for guilt at all! I should have said ...taboo against discussing this common human problem openly.

Elliot wrote:Welcome to ePlaya, Kathy!Perhaps it is too early for me to unleash my standard question of "What do you wish to contribute to the community of Burning Man?". There are times when we need to take care of ourselves first, before we have any reserves to give from.

I'm hoping to contribute at the airport - potentially customs. I have some relevant interests and work experience.

Beyond that, trying to find a group I can be useful to. I like to make things.

some seeing eye wrote:Have you worked in life risk situations anonymously?

I don't know what you mean by life risk. I've been fortunate to have some opportunities to assist with the Red Cross; it's not anonymous, but the people we served didn't know me from anyone else. To the clients, it was about the service and their needs - not mine.

Kathy some camps, like my modest little slice of paradise on the playa, are looking for people who are, as we used to say in L.A., "geographically desirable". So if you're from Salt Lake City, for example, looking for burners in your general area would have some promise. If you were from Northern/Central California, many other camps, like BDC&WB, might give you a look. And so forth. So tell us a little bit about you (for example: where do you currently live, are you able to haul infrastructure, what musical or theatrical talents do you possess, do you have a certain morally casual attitude, etc.) and you might have a smidgin more luck. It pays to advertise.

Kathy, Welcome to eplaya. The best way for a 'first timer' to help is locally, before the burn. Once you get there it's great to put in a shift for some department but honestly you'll be over whelmed. Like Doc said, meet with some local burners. Help with a project. Haul some stuff or even a person if you have a lot of room in your vehicle.

Burning man isn't about sex, drugs and rock and roll. Well OK. Maybe it is but those things are options. You don't have to be transformed. JUst read everything you can. Search the BM site for info. Make lists.

"It isn't the experience. It isn't he memory. It's the anticipation." (The Simpsons)

Pictures or it didn't happen GreycoyoteI a recovering swagaholic I have to resist my grabby nature VultureChowThose aren't buttermilk biscuits I'm lying on SavannahWe're out there to play like adults with no adult supervision CaptG

I'm hoping to contribute at the airport - potentially customs. I have some relevant interests and work experience..... ...

Perfect! More and more Burners are flying in, now that there are official BM approved charter flights. So, Black Rock City Airport -- 88NV -- will likely need more personnel, yes.

At the same time, I will mention that many Burners choose to do something entirely new to them. And BM is perfect for that also, since "Try something new!" and "Stretch your comfort zone!" are intrinsic to the Burner ethos.

Regardless, do not commit to very much in your first year. You will need plenty of time to simply gape in awe -- seven square miles of it.

Dr. Pyro wrote:So tell us a little bit about you (for example: where do you currently live, are you able to haul infrastructure, what musical or theatrical talents do you possess, do you have a certain morally casual attitude, etc.) and you might have a smidgin more luck. It pays to advertise.

That makes sense

I'm out of Ontario at the moment (near-ish to Toronto). I'll be relocating to Washington (Bellingham) in a few months, going back and forth to and from Vancouver.

I haven't decided yet whether to just fly in (my preference), or to drive while my spouse flys in (the practical choice). I have a fairly large truck, which makes radical self-reliance just a bit easier.

I wouldn't call myself morally casual - I have very rigid morals, but limited in scope. I have relatively few lines, but those lines don't get crossed.

Elliot wrote:Regardless, do not commit to very much in your first year. You will need plenty of time to simply gape in awe -- seven square miles of it.

Where's the fun in gaping? I'm not much of a fan of spectator sports - life is meant to be lived

Certainly. Please allow me to clarify.

Yesterday, there was a big spectator event on TV. Super Ball, or some such. American football, I think. A neighbor of mine had numerous friends over, and the racket was downright offensive. Such language -- at the top of their lungs!

During an intermission (presumably), my neighbor noticed me working in the yard and we chatted over the fence. He was surprised I was not glued to my own TV.

So I asked him to consider this: Was I participating in that football match in any way?No, of course not -- I was right there in my back yard.And that was why... I finally got thru to him... why I was not interested in whatever-it-was on that TV.

Better?

What I meant was this.... Hmmmm... let me try to reconstruct a few of my thoughts during my first Burn in 2006:

"What! People can DO that?!"

"Wow, this is possible?!"

"Where did all these people suddenly come from, to help me set up my tent in the wind? They are total strangers to me!"

"Holy messerschmidt -- why didn't I think of THAT?!"

"Oh-my-dog-and-all-her-bahstard puppies... somebody is actually teaching how to have better orgasms -- with a live demonstration!"

"Jumpin' Jehosaphat, how did they BRING that THING out HERE?!"

"Am I hungry? Well... ... Hot ziggety... I have a plate of fresh pancakes in my hand!"

"Yikes! That guy has a six foot flame shooting out of his hat!

And so on and so forth. You would have to lock yourself in your truck all week to avoid this phenomenon.Enjoy it.

I haven't decided yet whether to just fly in (my preference), or to drive while my spouse flys in (the practical choice). I have a fairly large truck, which makes radical self-reliance just a bit easier.

...[/quote]I'd strongly recommend not flying in for your first visit to the playa (I'm assuming from your earlier posts you mean flying yourself into 88NV). That would be my recommendation to anyone btw, for a couple of reasons. First is that I feel as a pilot it's important to be really cautious about tackling conditions that are far outside your experience, and the playa is that. I've not entered 88NV into my logbook yet, but I've seen dusty conditions from the ground that would be very tricky for an inexperienced pilot. Remember the adage about old bold pilots. Second reason is that the drive itself provides a valuable experience and context for the event. I've only driven (or ridden) up 447 from Reno, not sure how the drive down from the north would compare but some of the essential appreciation for the remoteness of the site must be the same.

Personally I find my Burn starts well before I'm on playa. Some years it's been in Reno, reconnecting with friends. Other years it's been during airline connections when I start to see other Burners (even going in a week early I've ended up encountering friends from other cities connecting to the same flight in Chicago). One year it was seeing the first hippy school bus in a Wyoming interstate rest area. Point is, fully experiencing the transition from mundane life to BRC is part of the set and setting that will shape your experience.

All that said, one option might be to fly yourself into Reno and make your first trip on the ground, then return after you've set up camp and gotten some familiarity with conditions to pick up the plane and fly yourself in. One advantage, if your schedule would accommodate, is that you could arrive early, before the airport is open, to help build the airport before you fly into it. To me that would be the best of all possible worlds, and even better if you don't have a vehicle and can just fly out you miss the wonderful experience of exodus, or ten to twelve hours sitting in traffic waiting to get out the gate...

One last thing to consider is gross. Don't know what you fly but 88NV is high and hot so you'll either be traveling extremely light or needing to have some ground shipping available for gear. That might argue for a support vehicle, so much for avoiding exodus (or do some teardown and cleanup and leave Tuesday).

Kathy, If you were thinking of flying your own plane into the BRC Airport, all the information you'll need is available on the BM site. It's a very busy private airport.

Pictures or it didn't happen GreycoyoteI a recovering swagaholic I have to resist my grabby nature VultureChowThose aren't buttermilk biscuits I'm lying on SavannahWe're out there to play like adults with no adult supervision CaptG